Since Forbes hired me in 1995 to write a legal column, I’ve taken advantage of the great freedom the magazine grants its staff, to pursue stories about everything from books to billionaires. I’ve chased South Africa’s first black billionaire through a Cape Town shopping mall while admirers flocked around him, climbed inside the hidden chamber in the home of an antiquarian arms and armor dealer atop San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill, and sipped Chateau Latour with one of Picasso’s grandsons in the Venice art museum of French tycoon François Pinault. I’ve edited the magazine’s Lifestyle section and opinion pieces by the likes of John Bogle and Gordon Bethune. As deputy leadership editor, these days I mostly write about careers and corporate social responsibility. I got my job at Forbes through a brilliant libertarian economist, Susan Lee, whom I used to put on television at MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. Before that I covered law and lawyers for journalistic stickler, harsh taskmaster and the best teacher a young reporter could have had, Steven Brill.

Did Greg Smith Commit Career Suicide?

Career coaches say it was a mistake for Greg Smith to publicly criticize his boss, Lloyd Blankfein.

When Greg Smith decided to write a scathing op ed piece that ran in the New York Times yesterday, blasting his employer, Goldman Sachs, for sacrificing its clients’ best interest in favor of maximum profits, he violated a cardinal rule of career advancement: Do not bad-mouth your former employer. Career coaches and executive recruiters who have worked with finance professionals agree that making such a public statement foils any chances Smith, 33, might have had of working on Wall Street.

Roy Cohen, a New York career coach who worked as a regular outplacement consultant for Goldman Sachs from 1990-2004, says that Smith’s Times piece “raises questions about this fellow’s integrity and loyalty.” An even bigger issue, says Cohen: When Smith detailed how Goldman employees “callously … talk about ripping their clients off,” he put the livelihoods of the 30,000 people employed by the firm at risk. Goldman’s stock dropped 3.4% yesterday after the op ed appeared, though shares have been recovering some of their losses today. Employers will be wary of hiring someone who would intentionally cause such damage. According to a Timesstory today, Smith sent an email resignation to his bosses at 6:40 a.m. London time yesterday, 15 minutes before the op ed appeared.

Further, says Cohen, potential employers will be turned off by the fact that Smith seems to have inflated his role at the firm. The Times called him “executive director” in its author description, when it turns out he was a vice president. According to Cohen, after 12 years at Goldman, Smith should have at least advanced to managing director. Getting stuck in the vice president position means “something must have broken down” for Smith inside the firm, says Cohen. In a memo to employees yesterday, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein and President Gary Cohn, whom Smith criticized in his piece, clarified that Smith was a vice president, not a director.

By holding himself out as superior to, and more ethical than, the firm where he worked, could Smith’s op ed be read as a job advertisement for himself? Not in finance, say recruiters and coaches. Cohen says that the kind of disillusionment with ethical standards that Smith expressed is common on Wall Street, but that it was “naïve” for Smith to blame his employers for his personal feelings. “It’s a problem in every financial institution,” says Cohen. Wise employees keep their sentiments to themselves, he says, and resign if they are unhappy.

Jesse Marrus, a former financial executive recruiter who now runs the finance jobs website StreetID.com, sees a slim chance that Smith could be picked up by a small hedge fund. But on the other hand, he says, “I don’t see anyone wanting to be associated with someone who has muddied the waters.”

New York career coach Eileen Wolkstein, who has worked with many clients in finance, says she doesn’t think Smith’s career is completely over, though she agrees that he won’t get a job in finance, or any job until the furor over his op ed dies down. Then he should tap into the network at his alma mater, Stanford. “Are there buddies who could use his expertise in a start-up?” she says. “Sure.” Marrus guesses that Smith could get a job in green energy or another industry several steps removed from Wall Street.

Those may be possibilities, says Dale Winston of headhunting firm Amrop Battalia Winston, but the fact remains that Smith aired his employer’s dirty laundry in the most public of forums, which would make any company wary. “He should have vented to his friends and colleagues and resigned gracefully,” says Winston.

Smith has not spoken to the media since his piece ran. Requests for comment sent from Forbes to his Facebook account have gone unreturned. This morning the Timesquoted a friend who attended Stanford with Smith, Miami lawyer Daniel Lipkin, as saying Smith “sounded confident and felt good about his decision to go public,” after the article appeared. The Times also says Smith had a sheet listing Goldman’s business principles taped to the wall next to his computer in London. “He has a really high moral fiber and really cared about the culture of the firm,” Lipkin told the Times.

Cohen, author of The Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide, speculates that Smith is in fact angling for some kind of writing deal. “I’m envisioning that he’s going to get a huge, huge book contract,” says Cohen. “There’s nothing people like to read about more than Goldman, Sachs.”

Wolkstein sees one other career option for Smith. “He could become head of Occupy Wall Street,” she says. “But I don’t think that’s the kind of job he’s looking for.”

Update: Cohen is misinformed when he says Smith inflated his title. Smith did not. Goldman Sachs uses the title “executive director” in its London office to mean the same level as “vice president” in the U.S.

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Did any of these people think that maybe Greg Smith cares more about his integrity than a career on Wall Street? Or is that all they can focus on is why anyone would want to work anywhere other than Wall Street? Perhaps he’s invested wisely enough on his own to retire now. Or start his own investment firm. Or perhaps there may be more like Mr. Smith out there that WANT someone with his integrity at their firm. Maybe Mr. Smith wants to do something as simple as open a canoe rental shop on a mountain lake somewhere. I’m sure that the man who is smart enough to call his former co-workers out on their avarice is also smart enough to already have had other plans in place when he did so.

There is entirely too much playing the game of divining Mr.Smith’s personality, his position, his earnings, etc. This game is a way to avoid participation in the real conversation, which he only added to and amplified: an analysis of GS and their like on Wall Street. Mr Smith and his personal life may hold some people’s attention as a human interest story, but the questions he puts forward are valid, whatever his own circumstances.

AMEN! Your comments express my sentiments, as well. I would assume that Greg Smith was well aware of all possible repurcussions concerning his actions and the impact upon his “career.” This article says everything about its author and nothing about Greg Smith. I put the word career in quotes because it sounds like he Greg is off to new adventures, those that involve his own personal moral compass. I doubt he is anxious to continue a career on Wall Street. In short, when we do the right thing, things fall into place.

This is a wonderful example of “ethical whisteblowing” and I am quite sure that Greg Smith did the right thing, here. Good for him.

What a bunch of horse pucky. GS is filled with salesmen. Salesmen all think of the customer as less than themselves. Pilots etc call passengers “geese”, shoe salesmen refer to customers in a variety of ways, “big foot”, Stubbs, Granny Panties. You’all need to get it straight sales people will always treat you differently to your face than they do when you’ve turned your back.For god’s sake grow up.

Thank you! As I was reading this article the whole time I was thinking, “I can’t believe the author is actually taking the side of the Wall Street moneygrubbers!” The fact is, we need more whistleblowers in the world like Mr. Smith. It may not have been the smartest move where his career is concerned, but I bet he sleeps a lot better at night now. When I first read his remarks regarding the general greedy atmosphere at GS, all I could think was, “No wonder the rest of the world hates us.”

Funny how by failing to be an ethical entity, Goldman risked reputation and profits. In this case, integrity happens to matter for the simple fact you cannot trust all of your employees solely on the principle that you SHOULDN’T talk badly about former employers. Smith used this to his advantage and took a good stab at Goldman. Hopefully other companies are realigning their mission statements with their culture, because brand image isn’t only relevant to your customers, its relevant to your employees as well.

Thank you David Faber for attempting to keep us on track. While Mr. Smith’s personal story is certainly of interest to many readers, let us not stray from the larger questions pertaining to the regulation and reform of investment banks and other institutions that may have precipitated the (now global) financial crisis.